Electronic sensors are often used for measurement of environmental characteristics. Gyroscopes are capable of measuring inertial characteristics, such as angular rate and/or acceleration. In known inertial measurement units (“IMUs”), a single gyroscope is used for each range of motion that is to be measured. For example, IMUs employ a gyroscope for pitch, a gyroscope for roll, and a gyroscope for yaw. In some applications additional gyro(s) may be used for redundancy so that on the event of a gyro failure the redundant gyros(s) data may be used.
Outputs from gyroscopes may be unstable due to error terms that vary over time. Some error terms are caused by environmental changes to the gyroscope, such as temperature fluctuation, shock, and vibration. The error terms may or may not be correlated with each other and may or may not vary between gyroscopes. A specialized and more precise gyroscope may be used to reduce the error terms, but at a higher manufacturing cost.
Thus, a need exists for reduced error terms in environmental characteristic measurements without higher manufacturing costs.